As I prepared to attend Mass on Christmas Eve at St. Hyacinth Church in Westbrook, three busloads of immigrants were being routed to Washington, D.C., by another Catholic, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.

Migrants from Venezuela, who boarded a bus in Texas, wait to be transported to a local church by volunteers after being dropped off outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15. Three busloads of migrants were dropped off outside Harris’ residence on Christmas Eve. Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images/TNS

The buses contained approximately 130 individuals, many of them inadequately clothed for the freezing weather they would experience. These refugees, for that is what they are, fleeing violence, poverty and political repression in their home countries, were dropped off in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’ home.

We might remember two other individuals who were refugees: Joseph and Mary, the Christ child’s parents. Learning that King Herod had decreed the death of every male aged 2 years and under to ensure the death of the baby who he so feared, Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt, where they remained until they learned that Herod had died.

That journey must have been hard for the young couple and the baby, perhaps even as hard as the torturous journey that so many of today’s immigrants have made to arrive at our southern door. They have come hoping, as Joseph and Mary did in Bethlehem, to find room in our inn. Yet many, like that couple of two thousand years ago, are finding the door to the inn closed. One might hope for greater compassion from the Texas governor, that he stop using human beings as political pawns, and that he focus more clearly on that pair of much earlier refugees.

Edward J. Rielly
Westbrook